Maps, Turquoise, and Bronze.......Holiday Style

Oh, it's been so long since my last post. Well, it's that time of year, when I'm immersed in Christmas crafting and lose all track of time!

Every year, I open my mind to inspiration, to see what new designs I can come up with for ornaments and decorations. It's obvious I've got a one track mind this year, because the common thread running through my creations is maps, with emphasis on turquoise and bronze copper. I'm quite sure it's due to my most recent painting creation, this jewelry chest.

So, without further ado, here are my designs for this Christmas............

 You see what I mean? Can't seem to shake the obsession with maps, 

compass roses, and turquoise and bronze.

The globe ornament is decoupaged with copies 

from one of my antique atlases. 

All the maps in this book are printed with only cream, turquoise and orange. 

For each ornament, I cut 2 circles (by hand. Oy.) from thick chipboard, 

then folded them in half and joined the folds with glued paper strips.

After I added the map circles, I crackled the sealed surface to give it

the appearance of crazing of an old globe. I painted the chipboard edges

with metallic bronze as a subtle reference to the gold meridian on globes.

Topped off with a globe-inspired metal bead and textured chain.

The stars were also cut by hand from thick chipboard. I found this fabulous and brilliant turquoise German glass glitter. I painted a base coat of dark turquoise, alternating with a custom bronze-gold paint that I added gold pigment powder to to make it more brilliant. I also topped off these stars with the little globe-ish bead, and attached bronze-colored wire bent into a 

graceful hook for hanging.

I can never get tired of playing with glitter, paper, paint and glue......can you?

Turquoise and Bronze, how do I love thee?...................

Linking To:

Jennifer Rizzo

My latest Treasure Chest Masterpiece......

I’ve painted a lot of jewelry boxes, frames, and shelves, but I do believe this is my new favorite!

I was a little concerned this project might not make me happy, when I vacillated endlessly over the color choices. As a rule, I feel my best ideas just fall into place pretty quickly, so when it doesn’t, it feels forced and uninspired. What made matters worse is that I custom-mixed every single color, along with turning them all into chalk paint, and it seemed to take forever before I was satisfied with the tints. (Word to the wise…..if you want to tackle a project with several colors of chalk paint, save yourself the time to make them and just buy Annie Sloan’s chalk paint. The consistency is already perfect.)

Before......

Voila!

I created 5 colors for this piece. The base coat is brick red, then a sharp rusty orange, and a zesty mossy green. The final layer is a fabulous deep and vibrant tint that I would call a cross between turquoise, aqua, and teal. I think this is my new favorite color. Glad I made plenty of this for another project. I also mixed a chocolate brown into the black to make it rich and warm.

After all the distressing revealed the undercoats, the orange against the red morphs into a beautiful copper tone, and the green backing the turquoise morphs into a yummy verdigris. The combination of all the colors backing the warm black is just perfection. I topped off the chest with a compass rose-inspired star, using the orange and black paint. And as usual, finished with clear and dark wax.

But of course I couldn’t stop there. Since I lined the drawers in my last jewelry box project with map paper, I liked it so much that I had to do it again. This time I made copies of old maps from an antique map in my Atlas collection. I love that all the maps in this book are printed using only ivory, aqua blue, orange, and black, coordinating perfectly with the paint colors.

I am so in love with this color combination, that I may have to repeat myself on the next project.
Couldn't resist grouping this with my black pumpkins. Awesome contrast! I have an old hanging spice/apothecary cabinet that is itching to be painted…….sooo gotta go. Projects are waitin!

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